More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)

Charles James Fox

(1749–1806)Politician and leader of the Whig party whose reputation, both in his own time and now, derives not so much from any practical achievements as from his powers as an orator and his personal charm. To these was added a dissolute image very much in keeping with his period (he was an obsessive gambler and a close friend of the future *George IV), together with a tendency to espouse causes which were unpopular at the time but later came to be seen as liberal. He opposed, for example, the war to suppress American independence from Britain, and he campaigned against the slave trade; more controversially he was almost alone among British politicians in welcoming the *French Revolution.

The thread which linked these themes was an emotional commitment to liberty. It was this which caused him to be the leading critic of the powers of the monarch; and the resulting enmity of *George III kept him out of office apart from a few brief spells as foreign secretary. (He was the first to hold that post, in 1782, when the *Foreign Office became the province of a separate *secretary of state, and he held it briefly again in 1783 and 1806). Added to these disadvantages was the extraordinary dominance of *Pitt. For the last 20 years of his life Fox was confined to leading the Whig opposition in the House of Commons.